Armenia

At least 14 journalists were injured and had their equipment damaged while they were covering a protest in the Armenian capital of Yerevan on June 23, 2015, according to local and international news reports. Several of the journalists were also briefly detained at a local police station, the independent news website Armenia Nowreported.

New York, March 15, 2011--The Committee to Protect
Journalists is alarmed by Armenia's refusal to allow four reporters with the
Finnish public broadcaster YLE to enter the country, and called on the authorities
today to allow the journalists to resume their work in Armenia.

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On the Runet, Old-School Repression Meets New

By Nina Ognianova and Danny O'Brien

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has often talked about the importance of a free press and free Internet, telling reporters before his election that the Web "guarantees the independence of mass media." He explicitly tied the two together in his first State of the Union address in November 2008, declaring that "freedom of speech should be backed up by technological innovation" and that no government official "can obstruct discussion on the Internet."

Key Statistic
1: Number of digital television licenses the government will grant per region. The plan will cut diversity.

As his government strengthened ties with Russia, President Serzh Sargsyan had to quell lingering domestic discontent over electoral fraud and economic woes, particularly in the construction and mining industries. New legislation granted regulators broad new powers to award and revoke licenses, while putting severe limits on the number of provincial broadcast licenses. Self-censorship remained widespread in the media, as lawlessness curbed the activities of journalists, human rights defenders, and opposition leaders.

CPJ has
documented for several years the use of spurious anti-piracy
raids to shut down and intimidate media organizations in Russia and
the former Soviet republics. Offices have been shut down, and computers seized. Often, security agents make bogus claims to be
representing or acting on behalf of the U.S. software
company Microsoft.

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New York, December 2, 2010--The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned about reports that Nikol Pashinian, an opposition activist and editor-in-chief of the independent daily Haykakan Zhamanak, was beaten in custody and moved into solitary confinement.

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New York, June 2, 2010—The
Committee to Protect Journalists is very concerned that Armenian authorities are
detaining Ani Gevorgian, a journalist for the pro-opposition daily Haykakan
Zhanamak, after she was arrested on assignment on Monday. Police in the capital, Yerevan, arrested Gevorgian, left, as she was covering a sit-in at Liberty Square being staged by activists with the Armenian National Congress, Anna Akopyan, Haykakan Zhanamak’s director, told CPJ.

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We issued the following statement today
afterthe National Assembly of Armenia
approved on a second reading the decriminalization of defamation, including
libel and insult. If signed into law, the amendments to Armenia’s penal
and administrative code will remove
imprisonment from the list of penalties for defamation; individuals found guilty
of the offense would face a monetary fine as maximum punishment.

The nation remained polarized by the fraud-marred 2008 presidential election won by Serzh Sargsyan, with large public protests and violent government reprisals continuing well into 2009. The global economic crisis caused layoffs in the mining industry and a decline in remittances from Russia, heightening public frustrations. The government sought to suppress critical debate over these issues, and journalists faced intolerance, hostility, and violence.

New York, April 30, 2009--The Committee to
Protect Journalists calls on Armenian authorities to apprehend three assailants
who attacked Argishti Kivirian, editor of the independent news Web site Armenia Today. The unidentified men beat
Kivirian early this morning, leaving him hospitalized in serious condition, Zhanna Alexanian, president of the Yerevan-based
organization Journalists for Human Rights, told CPJ.